No pun intended but i guess i now know where Ekta Kapur picks her (female) inspiration from. A journey of a short 5 hours had so much packed into it that i am still absorbing my midnight episode with the "local-ladies-compartment" train, travel once and you shall realize women are force to reckon ... irrespective of (their mosquito) size every female was all set to fight even before being given a reason to... !
2 am - I woke up (after sleeping at 1) to catch a train leaving at 4 am, distance from house to station 15 min ! i was surprised as to why i was being dragged out of my comfort sleep so early...and so i was told "YOU SHALL SEE" ... so i dragged myself up and got ready in half an hour, and was on my way to station in a rickshaw... totally open and at every turn you feel you are gonna tumble out of it. Got our tickets and was at the station at 3:30 am and then i realized why i was being woken up so early ...
3:30 am - The station was bloody crowded, it was not only me who was having a 3 day vacation, but who would have thought that half the globe plans to chug down to Sahranpur of all places *sigh* well, anyway i braced myself to push and rave through to grab 3 seats (me, mom and oju) as soon as the train halted on the platform, *phew* am sure that must have burned more then 10 ounces of my calories (lol). Finally after (feeling as if a ran a marathon) covering 10 steps between a hurricane of hooligans, i dropped myself and my luggage on our seats, foolishly being happy to grab decent places.. unaware of the following 5 hours and EVENTS.
4:00 am and followed... Sharing the top berth of mine with two huge bags and 3 females, me literally clamped to the very edge against my bag i thought "when did this happen, could it be more of a disasterous uncomfortable journey" hahaha .. i didn't realize we had 6 stops on our way to Delhi "merath" being one of them.
Finally somehow "ADJUSTING" ourselves for the way, i started my journey... within one hour the train was as alive as if it were bright day time and we were in a party !
And then i hear a voice to my left, a skinny lean freckled girl climbs up and asks (all three of us), rather say - "HELLO thoda shift ho, jage karo" and i was perplexed at HER BELIEVE SYSTEM, what the hell was she thinking ... oh BTW it was MERATH station... *ahem* so as i was saying, this female with the dirtiest of expression and bossiest of tone asks us to pile two heavy bags one on top of the other (ONE WITH A LAPTOP) so that she can climb atop (ON A SEAT FOR MAXIMUM 3, ALREADY ADJUSTING 4 PEOPLE AND TWO HUGE BAGS) ... all i could do was to blink at her and she was already picking up our bags to move them, and before i could react a very shrilled voice hit my ear drums from the adjacent seat where a FEMALE HULK (trust me she looked scary) was screaming at top of her voice on a group of college girls "tum yahan ki mahrani nahi ho, mujhe mat samjhao chalo hato jagah karo" and other things that i should rather not say here... and then i was again distracted by this female still waiting us for making space and says "hello" (rude) to which i say "hi" (laugh) SHE looks at me surprised and smiles, i smile back .. she "apne ye compartment kharid nahi rakha, jagah karo" ME "really, mujhe nahi pata tha ki 30 rupee mein compartment bik jata hai" SHE "- shocked, still smiling, waitng ME "scooping GOD KNOWS HOW" pressed against the trains body .. while she sits "PHEW" !
Me laughing, girl next to me laughing, my sister laughing... all three of us discussing the new color scheme of the compartment that we "now bought" hence she laughing lol !
Somewhow getting rather scooping up and changing positions to the most horrid best i could afford there, laughing and cracking jokes we carried on, behind us a brawl taking place between two females - one haryanwi and one UPite... you can imagine the kind of diction and pronounceation they used, sending me in fits of laughter... trust you me the only thing that was left was for them to knock each others teeth out !
As the heat increased in that fight, a couple of women started singing rajisthani folks song, new set of passenger(S) by the dozen climbed at every station, in the already sandwitched ladies compartment, one left four scrammbled to grab those 2 inches of butt rest area (sorry i cant call it a seat).
Across me a smart young mom with her sleepy little kid in her lap trying her level best to "adjust" with fellow passengers in terms of space, some times smiling sometimes awed
(I GUESS IT WAS HER FIRST TIME TOO, LIKE MINE) both of us sharing at times "i know" and at times "hahaha" looks. SO ON AND SO FORTH ......
... And so i guess my high usage of "action" and "adjust" term is justifies, but even after this so shocking and new 5 hours of my life, strangely i enjoyed it all ... stepped out at delhi station with a puzzled large grin on my lips. AM SURE I AM NEVER GONNA FORGIVE THIS AXE-PER-OUNCE OF MY LIFE EVER.
